http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20100111-246658/SWS-slip-warning-sign-for-Noynoy-to-shape-up
MANILA, Philippines – Four months before the May elections, and five months after Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III announced his candidacy for president, a recent survey shows that support for Aquino, the front-runner, is declining, while that for his closest rival, Sen. Manuel Villar, is slowly rising.
According to the latest survey of Social Weather Stations (SWS) last Dec. 27-28, the race no longer appears to be too lopsided in favor of Aquino.
It is developing into a more competitive, and therefore exciting, electoral battle in which Aquino cannot remain complacent resting on the Edsa I legacy of his mother, President Corazon Aquino.
The survey shows that the Cory magic is wearing thin as an electoral asset.
The latest poll is a salvo across the bow warning Aquino to shape up with his campaign. Villar’s stubborn catch-up is not yet threatening to enable him to recapture the lead he enjoyed before Aquino declared his candidacy on Sept. 5 last year—an event that redrew the electoral map.
The latest SWS survey not only reveals the rate of Aquino’s decline and that of Villar’s gains. But more important is that it is a pointer to whether Villar will remain viable as the foremost challenger to dismount Aquino, as the rest of the known presidential contenders drop out.
The survey has given heart to Villar’s campaign that has been demoralized by the survey results of the past three months showing Aquino romping far ahead of the pack with a 50-percent lead.
The surveys in the next couple of months are crucial to the survival of Villar’s candidacy as the race develops into a three-cornered fight, with a possible face-off between him and Aquino as the leading contenders, and with Lakas-CMD-Kampi coalition’s standard-bearer, former Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro Jr., as a third force.
The SWS yearend survey showed Aquino was leading with 44 percent of 2,100 respondents nationwide. Villar obtained 33 percent, narrowing the gap with Aquino to 11 percentage points and improving his ratings from the 27 percent he got in the earlier Dec. 5-10 SWS survey. The survey was commissioned by Villar’s congressional allies.
Waning Cory spell
Villar gained 6 percentage points in the three weeks between the two surveys. Aquino obtained 46 percent in the earlier survey, leading Villar by 19 percentage points. Indicating that the emotional spell of Cory Aquino’s death was waning, Senator Aquino’s rating has been slipping, from 59 percent in the Nov. 4-8 survey, to 46 percent in the Dec. 5-10 survey.
Villar’s office claimed the senator “seems to have benefited from the shift in voting preference over the last three weeks in December as respondents start to put a premium on proven competence, leadership and accomplishment,” issues on which Aquino’s rivals have been hammering. Villar has much to do to overcome his deficits.
The yearend survey showed the marginalization of other presidential aspirants. Deposed President Joseph Estrada remained in third place but shed one point in the new survey to take 15 percent, down from his previous 19 percent, reducing him virtually to a nuisance candidate.
Estrada maintains the delusion that as a self-proclaimed champion of the poor and the masses, he still has a chance to be elected president after he was deposed by Edsa II and was convicted by the antigraft court of plunder during his short-lived presidency.
The ratings of Teodoro remained at 5 percent, similar to his Dec. 5-10 rating, but too insignificant to catch up with Aquino’s and even Villar’s. Sen. Richard Gordon scored 0.5 percent at the bottom of the list, along with few others too inconsequential to mention.
Lackluster performance
Although Villar gained 6 percentage points in the latest survey, it’s hard for him to make a case that he has developed into a formidable opponent of Aquino, enough to overhaul the latter’s 44-percent rating. The gap of 11 percentage points between Aquino and Villar is quite a chasm.
Drawing blood from the survey results, Aquino’s rivals have ganged up on him to emphasize the issue of his inexperience and lackluster performance in Congress. At a forum last week of presidential aspirants, including Villar and Aquino, moderated by GMA 7 at Alabang, Villar attacked Aquino’s purported lack of competence and experience to lead the nation.
Few of the presidential aspirants have executive experience. Villar is one of the few who have this. Villar followed up the attack on Aquino by Gordon, who claimed that he was “very proud of his own track record as mayor of Olongapo City, administrator of Subic Bay, as tourism secretary and as senator. Unfortunately, he is at the tail of the surveys.
Have you fixed your town?
Gordon told Aquino: “The record of service is important. Can you really do your job? Before you left your province, have you fixed your town?” Aquino had no answer.
Gordon said Aquino had never held an executive post. But does Villar have executive experience? Villar said at the forum, “I agree with Senator Gordon that in the end, it is what you have done and demonstrated in the past that matters.”
Nobody in the forum asked if any of the aspirants—Villar, Aquino, Gordon and Teodoro—could be trusted to provide an honest government. Integrity underlines the campaign theme of Aquino.
No one asked in the forum about Villar’s case in the Senate over alleged conflict of interest in the ethical issue of the realignment of the C-5 route passing through his property, increasing its commercial value.
The Senate committee of the whole has not issued its decision on the C-5 issue, leaving it as a cloud over Villar’s presidential candidacy. Villar has not attended the meeting of the committee.
Whether the Senate issues a decision before the election or whether the shift of Villar’s focus to the experience and competence issues would allow him to gain political mileage to overhaul Aquino’s commanding lead in the surveys remains to be seen.
Villar has much more to explain to the electorate for his real estate transactions than Aquino for his executive inexperience and lackluster performance in Congress.
Can Villar swing public opinion in his favor to mount a credible challenge to Aquino?
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